We argue from an empirical analysis of Latin American household surveys that per capita income in the country of residence has a negative effect on child labor supply, even after controlling for other household characteristics. We then develop a theory of the emergence of mandatory education...

Nearly 200 million children are engaged in child labor, many in developing countries that are part of the supply base of global manufacturing networks. This paper models a multinational firm in a developed country selling the product made by a supplier in a developing country. The firm can...

Compliance with international standards is now a sine qua non for entry into globalized production networks. Developing country firms and farms are confronted by an array of distinct product and process standards that they must meet. This has heightened the competitive challenges they face....

If child labor as a mass phenomenon occurs not because of parental selfishness but because of the parents' concern for the household's survival, the popular argument for banning child labor loses much of its force. However, this assumption about parental decision-making coupled with the...

Incorporating family decisions in a two-period-model of the world economy, we show that trade liberalization may reduce child labour in developing countries where the initial share of skilled workers in the adult workforce – though not as large as in developed countries – is nonetheless...

I explore the link between openness to trade, investments in human capital and technology, credit market constraints, and child labor in a panel of 101 countries from 1980 to 2004. In a cross-country setting, Neumayer and De Soysa (2005) and Edmonds and Pavcnik (2006) find that countries that...

This paper examines the relationship between child labor and access to credit at a crosscountry level. Even though this link is theoretically central to child labor, so far there has been little work done to assess its importance empirically. We measure child labor as a country aggregate, and...